Weekly News!

I cannot believe we are already wrapping up another week in first grade! The picture above is of a group of our students practicing retelling our Treasures story for the week with our retelling cards. It's one of our favorite weekly activities! Here’s what we have been up to:

Reading:
This week, our Treasures theme was "Teamwork". We identified the author’s purpose in the stories we read throughout the week, deciding if the author was writing to persuade, inform, or entertain. Our spelling pattern and making words lessons focused on words with final blends. Next week is an assessment week for Treasures, so we will be taking our Unit 1 Treasures assessment and continue to monitor our progress in Guided Reading groups. Our whole group instruction next week will be a Text Talk focus. Text Talk is the program that I mentioned at Curriculum Night that we will be inserting in our routine from time to time to provide explicit vocabulary instruction using rich literature!

Writing:
This week, we continued to work on our Small Moments writing with our personal narratives. The authors in our class have been working hard to stretch their small moment and add details to their writing. They have also been stretching words to make sure they are including a beginning, middle, and ending sound to make it easier for their audience to read. Next week, we will continue to perfect these pieces, and will then publish them! We will also finish up our October handwriting book next week!

Math:
In math this week, we focused on number stories before taking our Unit 2 test. We used the Mimio Vote tools to conduct a math review the morning of our test, and the students were very motivated by this! On Wednesday, we began Unit 3 with visual patterns, followed by even and odd patterns on Thursday. We also learned a new game, “Before and After”, which allows students to practice identifying the numbers that come before and after a certain number. We will begin next week with a lesson on number grid patterns, followed by an explorations day where we will do math centers related to patterns. Then we will practice counting on the number line, and finally adding and subtracting on the number line. Don’t forget to keep practicing skip counting at home! It is so important for the students to be able to count by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s automatically. These counting skills will be the foundation for many of our upcoming lessons!

Science:
This week, we continued our Matter unit by experimenting with gases and learning about molecules. The students discovered that when a gas gets hot, it expands, and when it is cold, it contracts. We learned about how molecules make up solids, liquids, and gases. We also used the iPads to make a class nature book with the items that were collected on your nature walk in preparation for our Collecting and Examining Life unit that will begin in November. For this unit, we will do a fall wild walk and a spring wild walk so that the students can make comparisons between the two. You can view this book to the right side of this post! Just click under "Nature Book".

Next week, we will experiment with matter and heat to find out what role heat plays in the changing states of matter. We will also be sending home an optional take home experiment with mixtures! Here we are acting as molecules in solids, liquids, and gases:




In other news…
Don’t forget about our Pumpkin Carving next Friday from 2:00-2:45 pm in our classroom! Please let me know if your child will have an adult guest to help them carve or if I should arrange for another helper for them! It’s going to be a fun afternoon!

Also, the pink conference forms that came home have the wrong due date on them! Instead of being due on the 28th, they are actually due on Monday, October 24th. I know that is a quick turnaround, but it is so important that we have those in on time so that I know what everyone’s preference is when the entire Dryden staff meets to schedule our conference times! Thank you for your cooperation!

Today brought our very first Art Appreciation lesson of the year! Mrs. Colias came in to teach us about the painting, “St. George Killing the Dragon” by Bernat Martorell. The students were very interested and had some great observations to share while viewing the painting! This painting can also be seen in person at the Art Institute of Chicago. Thank you, Mrs. Colias, for coming in to teach us about this beautiful artwork!


Upcoming Events:
Monday, 10/24: CONFERENCE SCHEDULING FORMS DUE!
Thursday, 10/27: JESSE’S BIRTHDAY!
Friday, 10/28: Pumpkin Carving Day 2:00-2:45 pm
Monday, 10/31: Halloween Parade and Party 1:15 pm
Wednesday, 11/9: School Picture Retakes

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺